The far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, won the second round of the presidential election in Brazil on Sunday night. It is worth ten points (55.2% against 44.8%) against the representative of the Workers Party, Fernando Haddad.
Jair Bolsonaro, the future president of Brazil, was elected on the promise to eradicate corruption, which gangrene the traditional parties. On paper, he does not have a majority in Parliament, atomized between thirty political parties. But the politician of the extreme right is strong to get a majority. It can rely on the support of powerful lobbies, such as the evangelicals or the landowners.
Its economic program, on the other hand, remains an enigma. Bolsonaro comes from a military statist tradition, but to rally the business world, he joined the ultra-liberal economist Paulo Guedes. Landmarks.
Is democracy threatened?
"I will respect democracy," assured Jair Bolsonaro, Sunday night, just after the announcement of his election as President of Brazil, a position he will occupy from next January. Will he keep that promise? In view of his past statements, Brazilian personalities have strong doubts. Including the former president of the Supreme Court, Joaquim Barbosa, known to have dropped relatives of former leftist President Lula, and who, the day before the second round, came out of the woods to support Haddad, the candidate of the Party of Bolsonaro, an obscure federal deputy for twenty-seven years, keeps a happy memory of the dictatorship, which touched Brazil from 1964 to 1985.
During the dismissal of the former president of the Workers Party, Dilma Rousseff, the former captain in the army had dedicated his vote to Colonel Ustra, who was a torturer during the years of lead. That same year, he also affirmed that "the error of the dictatorship was to torture without killing" . To understand: if the vast majority of the left-wing opponents, who had been arrested, had been murdered, as in Argentina, Brazil would not be plagued by all its endemic problems, such as corruption and insecurity.
Between the two rounds, the candidate put a big pressure on the "leftists": "if they do not submit to our laws" , he let go, it is the door or the prison. He hammered it, he will govern "for the majority and not the minorities" , namely homosexuals, blacks or even Indians.
One certainty, right-wing activists should not be worried. Just twenty years ago, Bolsonaro defended the freedom of expression of military college students who admired Hitler's "intelligence and daring" . He will be able to count on the support of the army, which at first, however, was suspicious of this deputy. Like the former president of the military dictatorship Ernesto Geisel, who called him, in 1993, "radical and bad military" .
Will he have the majority to govern?
Bolsonaro assures him urbi and orbi. But, although he came out largely victorious Sunday, only 52 candidates of his party were elected (against 56 for the Workers Party) in the House of Deputies, out of 513. In the Senate, only 4 out of 54. To vote his the most important reforms, such as that of the pension system, it should have the support of the 3/5.
If he does not manage to obtain this majority by his only name, he will have to enter into agreements with the elected representatives of the twenty-nine other parties. This could lead, as in previous legislatures, small or (large) arrangements between friends.
Will corruption be eradicated?
It is above all on this promise that he was elected. He surfed all the scandals of corruption that have splashed, in recent years, all parties including the two main, the Workers Party and the PSDB (right).
Except that two of his relatives are also suspected of fraud. Onyx Lorenzoni, who could be appointed as Minister of Casa Civil (the equivalent of Matignon), admitted receiving 100 000 reais (€ 25 000) from the agribusiness group JBS. Paulo Guedes, the very likely future Minister of the Economy, is suspected of fraudulent management of pension funds that would have allowed him to collect 150 million reais between 2009 and 2014.
Is the environment at risk?
"I will not leave a square centimeter to the Indians. Bolsonaro's message is clear. The future president of Brazil sees environmentalists as "Shiites" (in the radical sense of the term). Words that appealed to the agribusiness lobby, including the federal MPs who defend their interests.
The vast Amazon, considered by scientists as an essential element of the planet's climate regulation, is in the viewfinder. And in particular the indigenous reserves which represent 13% of the territory of the country. Bolsonaro wants to regroup the Ministries of the Environment and Agriculture, while offering this "super ministry" to a tenant of the productivism. At the same time, he wants to marginalize the role of Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, which issues mining and forestry permits). This structure, which had rendered an unfavorable opinion in May 2018, on Total's oil project at the mouth of the Amazon River, would become an empty shell, with no real power.
This would allow the new president to re-engage the policy of major infrastructure, launched during the dictatorship. Bolsonaro mentioned the construction of hydroelectric plants.
The ultraliberal economic program implemented?
Bolsonaro was, at least, honest on one point. He admitted, without stumbling, that he knew nothing about the economy. No matter, he joined the services of Paulo Guedes, enemy of the socio-democratic economic model. This Ph.D. from the University of Chicago is a supporter of ultra-liberalism. To reduce the debt, he wants, among other things, "accelerate the pace of privatization" (initiated by the current president right Michel Temer).
A view contrary to the positions of Bolsonaro, when he was a federal deputy. In 1997, he opposed, for example, the privatization of the mining company Vale do Rio Doce. And, in 2005, to that of telecommunications. "A monstrosity," he thundered.
Not a contradiction, in the 90s, the then MP had also voted against the pension reform, which he advocates today.